Originally Posted by
saddlesores
what does it matter? frames sometimes break. anything mass-produced will include some defective units.
what are the odds of winning any given lottery? millions to one, yet there are winner(s) every week.
what are the odds of life on earth? something like 1 in 10 quadrillion billion trillion.
yet here we are, once again, arguing about the odds of frame breakage, on a subforum of a niche forum of a wee tiny corner of the intertubes that includes a tiny fraction of the touring cyliste population.
and sure, there are 200 billion bikes on the planet. and just as there are 50 million 4WD vehicles in the usa (numbers randomly pulled from back hole for illustrious porpoises only), only a tiny fraction ever leave the pavement.
most bikes spend their lives in tool sheds, collecting cobwebs, except for occasional july 4th outings to the local park. the more expensive models live in basements, used as clothing racks, or static performance art gazed at longingly during midnight micturition excursions.
tour bikes are commonly used only on, umm....tour, heavily laden and ridden for extended periods, often in less than ideal climate and terrain conditions, so it would be expected that if they break, it would, ummm, like, y'know, be while on tour.
It's a fun topic to discuss on a warm autumn night, dreaming of further expeditions.
I wouldn't buy a used aluminum touring bike, especially after reading the short piece that MSN linked, but a new one should be good for many thousands of kilometres.
I don't know what the odss are, but it is probably one of the last things I would worry about. If you have the bike and the time, just go do the tour.
I saw a guy break an aluminum mtn bike just before a race at the Canmore Nordic Centre. He was doing a warm up ride before the race and came from a side trail onto a gravel road. There was a small drainage ditch maybe about half a metre deep at the side of the road and as he crossed it, the frame broke where the down tube met the steerer tube. It was a fairly new bike so it should have been covered by warranty, and the guy wasn't going very fast maybe about ten kph. He wasn't hurt, but I do remember he was pretty upset. I would have been too.